CAMERONE DAY

Monday, April 30, 2018

To mark today's 15th anniversary of the Legion's defense of and the Mexican forces multiple assaults on the Hacienda de la Trinidad, known to history as The Battle of Camerone, I am happy to post this new battle report, of a very recent refight of the scenario, courtesy of my good friend Nick Stern.

Nick used the bespoke Camerone rules set "NOT MEN BUT DEMONS!" written by Rich Hasenauer & Michael Montemarano.

These are the same excellent rules used for the first play-test posted on this blog soon after the 149th Anniversary of the battle. We used them to great effect again on April 30th, 2013 for our big commemorative game on the 150th Anniversary. Since then Nick used them in 2014 for a similar game at his home in the South Bay (here's a handy LINK to that AAR for anyone who wants to check it out). Also, in case anyone is interested, here's a LINK to our thoughts on the rules when Michael was still making adustments to them, before running his very impressive game at the 2012 Historicon which earned him the "Best of Show Game Master" award. Many thanks to Rich & Michael for sharing their rules with us back then and to Nick for allowing me to post this new Battle Report...

The only thing left to say is:Opposed to an entire armyIts mass crushed themLife rather than courageAbandoned these French soldiersIn Camerone on April 30, 1863.

* * * * *

Via Nick Stern:

Not Men, But Demons

AAR South Bay Game Club April 14, 2018

We had six players, two French and four Mexicans. One
Mexican player had played the game before, the rest had not. We began the game
with the French inside the hacienda with the gates barricaded. There were six
Mexican snipers on the second floor, otherwise all the other Mexican forces started
24” from the walls of the hacienda.

The French took the novel approach of not defending the
gates or the breach and instead positioned themselves in the two sheds on the
west wall between the gates, in the stable and in one of the enclosures on the
east wall facing the breach. The remainder of their force, about half, were
positioned in the lower floor of the hacienda, which was Danjou’s headquarters.

The dismounted Mexican cavalry came on in four twenty man
companies, two from the west, heading straight for the gates, one from the
south, heading for the breach and one from the east, heading for the undefended
wall on that side. On the first turn the French were able to kill four of the
Mexican snipers during their fire phase and killed the other two in hand to
hand combat for the loss of one Legionnaire killed.

In the subsequent two turns
the dismounted Mexican cavalry, unmolested by French fire, were able to
dismantle the barricades barring the gates and the breach in preparation for an
all out assault.

On the fourth turn the Veracruz battalion arrived and its
five companies distributed themselves on the east and south sides of the
hacienda. At the same time the dismounted cavalry companies entered the
courtyard. For this turn and the next, the French strategy seemed to be working
as the Mexican companies took heavy casualties from French fire.

The French
expected the Mexicans to break, but they hadn’t read the rules’ fine print: No
Mexican Straggling Inside the Hacienda! From now on full strength Mexican units
continued to arrive through the gates and the breach.

Still, things weren’t going too badly for the French. The
Mexicans seemed reluctant to melee the French (as historically) and their
musket fire against the French in cover meant they only hit on a “6” with a
fifty percent chance of the targeted Legionnaire being saved.

Unfortunately for
the French, one of their commanders had a nasty habit of rolling “6” on the
Fate Table, which resulted in dead, not wounded, Legionnaires. Also unfortunate,
at the beginning of turn Seven, French fire effect was halved due to low
ammunition. At this point the French decided to play a very defensive game and
backed off from the windows and doors, not allowing the Mexicans a shot in, and
waited for the Mexicans to come in after them.

The Mexicans methodically attacked, first, the stable and,
next, the shed nearest the stable, firing and fighting hand to hand, losing
three or more of their men for every Legionnaire killed, wounded or captured.

Things continued in this way until turn twelve, when I
reminded the Mexican players that every unit in contact with the hacienda could
attempt to start a fire by throwing flaming material through an open door or
window.

I allowed one attempt per unit per turn.

They needed to roll doubles on
two dice and the first Mexican player scored consecutive doubles on his first
two attempts.

This started fires at the door on the north facing side of the
hacienda and the window on the second story on the east side. I then gave the defenders
a chance to put out the fire by rolling off against the Mexican player who had
started the fire and the Legion player lost both rolls.

At this point the Legion players still had a good half of
their strength in the hacienda and, after two further turns of successfully
holding the three doors facing the courtyard against Mexican attacks (I
visualized Pvt. Henry Hook in the flaming hospital in the movie Zulu) the Legion players finally acted
audaciously and charged out of the burning building on turn fifteen!

There ensued a terrific melee, during which a further ten Legionnaires were
killed or wounded and captured, but they took down three or four Mexicans for
each of their own.

We called the game at the end of turn fifteen. There were
still nineteen unwounded Legionnaires, including Lieutenants Villain and Maudet,
Sergeant Major Tonel and Sergeant Palmaert, but they were now out in the open
with no cover and out of ammunition. I am sure they would have taken another
forty or sixty Mexican down had the fight continued. As it was, the final death
toll for the Mexicans was 110. It would have been more had the French players
defended the gates and the breach instead of allowing full strength Mexican
units to enter the courtyard.

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Once again April 30th arrives on the calendar, and with it the 154th anniversary of the battle of Camerone.I wish I had managed to organize a game on the day particularly as this year it lands on a Sunday, which might have made it relatively easy for lots of friends and fellow gamers to attend, but I am so busy with work and family that it was not to be. Still, I feel compelled to mark the occasion, and it turns out I have something new to post -- an AAR from my good friend Nick Stern...

A while back Nick was nice enough to send me this AAR, complete with some great photos of a smaller Camerone-style game he organized, GM-ed and played in up in the San Francisco Bay area, where he lives.With the arrival of CAMERONE DAY, 2017, it seems fitting for me to get around to posting it. One of these days -- perhaps next year? -- I will once again host a full-fledged 28mm refight of the battle, but for now I'm happy to be able to post Nick's battle report, which I sincerely thank him for sending my way:Here are the photos from Nick's small in overall scale but extra-large in miniature scale Camerone game...(see below!)As you can see, some of the figures are very toy soldier-ish. I am tending to favor that look because the alternative is to go for all-out realism, which on 54mm figures can be crazy detailed.The game started with ten legionnaires -- eight privates, one sergeant and one officer -- holding out against three (3) groups of five Mexicans, one each: (1) peasants, (2) dismounted irregular cav, and (3) regular infantry.I ran the peasants as well as GM-ing.As I had only two musket armed figures, I decided to sacrifice my three melee armed figures in a suicidal attack, while the infantry and cavalry were content to take pot shots from cover.The legionnaires had a plus one in fire and melee combat so they took casualties at a slower rate than the Mexicans.Halfway through the game the French had beaten the Mexicans to a standstill. So, to make things more interesting, I gave each Mexican player D6 reinforcements, results of which only totaled six more figures between us. But that was enough to tip the balance.Meanwhile, the French were rolling a D20 each turn trying to reach 100 at which point I promised reinforcements. Toward the end, as the Mexicans came over the wall, I sent the French reinforcements in: five Chasseurs d'Afrique...Unfortunately, they arrived too late to rescue the legionnaires, who had died to a man. There are several things I'd change, but over all it was a fun scenario!

Thursday, April 30, 2015

It's been almost a year since I've posted one word on this blog. Honestly this is because what little hobby time I have available has all been devoted to working on the rather elaborate terrain for my November 6, 1879 Battle of Charasiab game, which I hope to complete in the near future, and whose consturction I've been intermittently chronicling over the passt few years over at http://maiwandday.blogspot.com.

But Camerone Day lives on.

Today and tonight at Legion posts around the world, the modern-day spiritual descendants of the Company Danjou will commemorate the incredible accomplishment of those fifty men in the Hacienda de la Trinidad, where they fought for ten-hours against a total of two-thousand enemy soldiers and guerrilla fighters. Despite all becoming casualties or prisoners, Company Danjou managed to accomplish their mission. By tying up that vast number of enemy troops for the entire day, they prevented the gold convoy they were supposed to escort from being ambushed and taken by those same enemy forces. If the Mexicans had one small field piece or mountain gun on hand or within reach, the battle would have gone very differently, but they didn't. What Colonel Milan the Mexican commander and many of his officers and men did have, was an innate sense of decency, which led them to defend the handful of Legion survivors from the rage of their Mexican comrades, and treat them as honorable prisoners of war.

In honor of the memory of those men of the French Foreign Regiment (the Legion's official title back in 1863) as well their Mexican foes, both of whom stayed true to their missions despite almost unimaginable pain and suffering, I post these pics from the 150th Anniversary game we played on April 30th, 2013...